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Using XML
Editing XML
Normally, binding a ListView to a datasource (the xml) and let WPF databinding handle the update of the XML data automatically. To do this you could create a DataSet from your XML and then bind that using ListView.ItemsSource. You would then create a DataTemplate to define the visual representation of a record in your xml. This could be input controls that'd allow you do directly edit the record within your listview. If you prefer a master-detail style view you would bing the detail view to the current item of your listview (e.g. UserControl.DataContext={Binding CurrentItem, ElementName=myListView}). The rest will be handled by WPF. UPDATE: Here is an example how you could even bind direcly to your XDocument, so so you do not necessarily have to use DataSets. (Source: bitbonk on StackOverflow.com)
Parsing XML
Example (Source: Lukas Šalkauskas):
XmlDocument xmlDoc= new XmlDocument(); //* create an xml document object. xmlDoc.Load("yourXMLFile.xml"); //* load the XML document from the specified file. //* Get elements. XmlNodeList girlAddress = xmlDoc.GetElementsByTagName("gAddress"); XmlNodeList girlAge = xmlDoc.GetElementsByTagName("gAge"); XmlNodeList girlCellPhoneNumber = xmlDoc.GetElementsByTagName("gPhone"); //* Display the results. Console.WriteLine("Address: " + girlAddress[0].InnerText); Console.WriteLine("Age: " + girlAge[0].InnerText); Console.WriteLine("Phone Number: " + girlCellPhoneNumber[0].InnerText);
XmlDocument: If you are after one specific element, you can access child elements with the indexer: xmlDoc[“Root”], and these can be chained: xmlDoc[“Root”][“Folder”][“Item”] to dig down the hierarchy (although it's sensible to validate that these elements actually exist) – (Source: Jason Williams)
If you're processing a large amount of data (many megabytes) then you want to be using XmlReader to stream parse the XML. Anything else (XPathNavigator, XElement, XmlDocument and even XmlSerializer if you keep the full generated object graph) will result in high memory usage and also a very slow load time. Of course, if you need all the data in memory anyway, then you may not have much choice. (Source: Simon Steele)
Other technologies and libraries to manipulate XML in .NET:
Using LINQ with XML
Converting between List<T> and IEnumerable<T>: (Source: DrJokepu)
List<string> myList = new List<string>(); IEnumerable<string> myEnumerable = myList; List<string> listAgain = myEnumerable.ToList();
Beware however that myEnumarable is the same object instance as myList, but listAgain is not the same object instance as myEnumerable. Depending on what you want to do and what myEnumerable is, “List<string> listAgain = myEnumerable as List<string>;” might be better. – ChrisW Jan 23 '09 at 12:12
Chrisw: Oh yes, you're right of course, but the IEnumerable<T> interface is immutable so it will not cause problems in that direction and casting back just feels dirty when you have a function that will take care of type safety. – DrJokepu Jan 23 '09 at 12:17
You also could just use the original myList object. (I guess I don't really get the question) – sth Jan 23 '09 at 12:27
It's just that if he edits myList then he would be editing myEnumrable, but if he edits listAgain then he wouldn't be editing myEnumerable.
A List<T> is an IEnumerable<T>, so actually, there's no need to 'convert' a List<T> to an IEnumerable<T>. Since a List<T> is an IEnumerable<T>, you can simply assign a List<T> to a variable of type IEnumerable<T>.
The other way around, not every IEnumerable<T> is a List<T> offcourse, so then you'll have to call the ToList() member method of the IEnumerable<T>. Source: David B, Frederik Gheysels